


Ceviche

by Carbon65



Series: Graceland snapshots [5]
Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Diabetes, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Needles, Survival, ketoacidosis, medical liberties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 19:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2663600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike’s cells are eating themselves alive, cooking him in a bath of sugar, salt and acid. It’s a toss up which will kill him first: this, or the gun shot. Either way, he’s not letting her take him to the hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ceviche

**Author's Note:**

> For the H/C Bingo round 5 prompt, "Stranded/Survival Situation"
> 
> I've focused more on the survival than the stranded...
> 
> Also, this assumes one additional major deviation from canon. During the raid on the Solano compound, Mike was shot in the right calf, not the abdomen.

Of course, her phone would ring now. She’s five minutes away from presenting her research ideas to the Chief Scientific Officer of that research group she’s been interested in since she was a child. This is the kind of dinner that can make or break her career. So, of course her phone rings.

It’s a local number. It’s probably her apartment complex, about that leak in her ceiling. Or… maybe her doctor’s office. She’s been trying to get a hold of her doctor for a week. The prospect of another week like the last one makes her cringe. She picks up the phone.

“Hello?” She paused for a moment. “Hello?” Telemarketers have to wait until the second hello to answer.

“Hi, Rose?” The voice on the other end of the phone is distinctly male, but she’s not sure who it is.

“Hello?” She asks, tentatively. She probably needs to work on her phone skills.

“It’s Mike.”

She waits for more information, searching her mental catalog for Mikes.

“Mike Booth.” He supplies.

“Hi, Mike.” She greets him, her voice still tight. Yep, she needs to work on her phone skills. “What’s going on?”

“I need your help.” The words sound desperate.

She glances at the Geisel library, in the distance and contemplates taking off her heels. She doesn’t normally wear heels, except that today is important, and the extra height makes her feel a bit more powerful. “I’m in California.”

“Good, me too.” He sounds almost cheerful.

“Umm… okay?”

Why the fuck is Mike in California? Mike Booth is supposed to be in DC, wearing a suit and lying to his bosses. (Because you cannot afford to dress the way Mike dresses unless you have a full time job. And, that full time job should cover insurance. But, Mike goes to a clinic for the uninsured and underinsured. Ergo, he’s hiding something). He’s supposed to be drinking vodka and hating his job. Mike Booth is not supposed to be in California.

“I need insulin.” The words sound forced, and tight.

She checks the time. “Call your doctor.”

“I can’t.” Mike’s voice sounds strained. “He’s not answering his phone.”

“Go to a pharmacy.” She walks, a bit unsteady in her heels, toward the Pharmacy building. “Ask for R. It will be about $40, if you go to the right place.”

There’s some shuffling in the background, and then Mike gasps with pain. “I can’t really walk right now.”

Her stomach curls up into a lead ball, and decides to explore the lower reaches of the Newport-Inglewood fault. Her hands feel icy, despite the heat of the day.

“Go to the hospital.” She snaps.

Here’s more movement, and a muffled curse. It takes longer for Mike to come back on the line. “...I can’t. Someone shot me, and I can’t go right now.”

“Go to the goddamn hospital, Mike. I’m not playing.”

“Neither am I. If I go now, I’ll be dead.”

“If you don’t go now, you’ll be dead soon.”

“That’s why I called you.”

 

The storage locker is eerie in the darkness. She switches on the flashlight in her phone. Here heels aren’t that high, but she’ll trip on the unfamiliar stairs, otherwise. “Mike?”

“Here.” The grunt is low, and to her left.

She swings the beam in that direction.

“Jesus!”

She drops the light lower, and follows the noise.

There is too much blood. It’s black, and looks sticky, and covers his right leg from his blood-soaked sock to above his knee.

She’s not a medical doctor. She knows nothing about gunshot wounds. Hell, she barely survived a summer volunteering in the ER before she determined that she wasn't cut out to be a doctor. She’s not a medical doctor, not a nurse, not an EMT... not matter what TV shows might imply about biochemists. What she knows about gunshot wounds can be packed down the barrel of a pistol.

But, she knows insulin. She knows the way your body feels when your cells are starving for a taste of the sugar that’s surrounding them. She knows what it feels like to have your organs slowly cooked by sugar, salt, and acid, a horrifying ceviche in your own body. And, the scary thing is that it doesn’t take long. It’s probably a toss up: blood loss or this, which is deadlier, and which could kill Mike first. Either one will beat infection. She doesn’t know how long Mike has been bleeding. She doesn’t know how long Mike has been without the drug he needs to stay alive. For her, it’s two hours, and she starts to feel the effects. After five or six, she’s tied to her bed and her toilet, pissing her away. After a day, her options are hospitalization or death. She doesn’t know anything but gun shot wounds, but that might not matter.

She kneels down beside him. and Mike rolls himself over, and pulls himself into a sitting position, favoring his left leg. “I’m okay,” he rasps. The light of the phone reveals a trail of dried vomit by his chin.

“Here,” she drops her backpack, and pulls out a water bottle. “Drink this.”

If you want a world record for water chugging, offer a bottle to a diabetic with ketones and high blood sugar. Mike is panting by the time he finishes.

She takes the opportunity to pull out more things from her bag. There are a few paper-wrapped packages of gauze, a roll of medical tape, insulin, a blood sugar test kit, pee strips, and an open bag of syringes. She’s brought her own short-acting miracle drug. She’d come with what she had.

Mike finishes his bottle of water, and sets it down.

“Is that going to stay down?” She demands.

He shrugs. “Yes.”

“Can I take you to the hospital?” She tries again, hoping he’ll let her. She doesn’t think she can do this without help, even

Mike’s eyes go wide, and he starts shaking his head, and dragging himself away from her. “No! No!” His voice is low, and tight and panicked. “Not until Paul comes.”

“When will Paul come?” She keeps her voice quiet, but even.

“I dunno. But he promised.”

She doesn’t know Paul, but with the kind of faith Mike is putting in this guy, he’d better be here soon.

“What do you want to do until then?”

He shrugs. “I feel like shit.”

“Is your leg still bleeding?”

“No, it’s okay.”

She doesn’t know if she should believe him or not, but she goes onto the next triage question, the one that her parents ask that irks her so much. It’s diabetic variant of asking someone if they’ve washed their hands, or tried plugging in the lamp that doesn’t seem to be working. “Have you tested?”

He shakes his head, turning a sickly green color in the process.

She fishes in her make-up case, and mechanically pulls out an alcohol prep. “Do you want to do it?”

He stares at her.

“Which finger?”

He extends the middle finger of his right hand, robotically.

“Fuck you too, Mike. I’m going to set it to four, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll try five. I even got you a new lancet, so you don’t have to worry.” She doesn’t think he really cares. And, she probably broke some kind of law, dumping the old one in the ladies room. “I’m going to test you, now.”

Ten seconds later, the meter blinks to light with a cheerful, dire greeting. She’s not surprised, not really. But, maybe she should be. The Mike she knows is too much of a perfectionist, without any of her nasty self-destructive habits. His A1c is probably perfect. While she can tolerate being too high for the meter to read with water and a toilet, maybe he can’t.

“When was the last time you took insulin, Mike?”

“Yesserday,” he slurs. “Yesserday night. Can I have more water?” She passes him a bottle. “Was Yesterday Tuseday?”

It is Thursday. Thirty six hours since he had a dose. He’s probably on the long acting insulin, and that kept him clear headed enough to get here. But, now, he’s going down hill fast..

“How much do you take?”

Mike puts down the water bottle long enough to supply “I take ten lantus in the morning and ten lantus at night.”

“And when you’re high?” She asks, hoping he knows his correction factor.

Mike’s smile is weak. “I don’t get high.” He takes one of the gauze pads from the pile, and unwraps it, pressing it to his calf.

“Fuck,” she mutters into the vial beside her. She picks up a syringe, twirls it in her fingers, and pulls off the protective cap on the end. “Five. We’ll start with five.”

She draws up the dose, orange cap between her teeth. Her phone is on the ground, and one hand holds the bottle, while the other one guides the plunger down. She watches the liquid through the light of her screen.

“I’ve never given anyone a shot, before.” Mike lets go of his leg, and pushes up the sleeve of his gray t-shirt.

She reaches out, testing. She needs fat, not muscle. “You are too buff.”

He laughs, and lifts up his shirt. There are too many scars on that stomach, but she scoots over and finds a place. “One, two, three.”

“Fuck.” He whispers, hoarsely. “Fuck, that hurt.”

She nods. “Do you think you can pee on a stick of me?”

He ignores her, and reaches for another bottle of water.

“Okay, Mike.” She settles beside him to wait.

“No.” His voice is tight. “Now, I need you to go. Leave the water. Leave the stuff. And, go.” He shifts down, stretching out again.

Rose doesn’t move.

“Go.” The word is a coiled whip.

“Go,” he whimpers.

 

The night is long, and cold. The sound of her timer is unholy. She doesn’t want to wake up. But, she has to. One of the has to. An hour, and the meter is still blown out, and when Mike peed, he turned the strip black. Two hours, and the meter is coming down but his breahting is labored. There’s a thing about acidosis. The body doesn’t like it. It tries to balance metabolic acidosis with respiratory. She hates people who try to calm her by telling her to breath deeply, and fill her entire diaphragm. The only time your entire diaphragm should be filled with air is when you’re dying. Mike’s breaths are deep and slow, in his belly as much as his chest.

 

Three hours in, and his leg starts bleeding again. She tries to stop it, she does.

 

Four hours in. Another dose. She pushes his shoulder. “Mike, we need to go to the hospital.”

“Mike, your leg is bleeding. Mike, wake up.” She pokes his shoulder.

He blinks awake. Thank god he blinks awake. “I’m thirsty.”

She gives him one of the water bottles.

He stays awake long enough to finish the bottle, and pee.

He closes his eyes again, and she’s left deciding between letting go of his leg, giving him another dose, and checking to see just how bad things are.

In the end, she ties his belt as a tourniquet, just for a moment.

 

It’s light.

How is it light?

Her mouth feels like a lawn and tastes like death.

Beside her, someone is quietly retching. “Are you okay?”

The only response is more retching.

She blinks her eyes, and everything comes flooding back.

Mike has gotten himself up, propped against the wall. He’s vomiting up yellow water that smells like lemonaide. It covers his gray t-shirt and his coat.

“Mike?” She moves to pick him up. “Mike, we’re going to the hospital now.”

“Paul.” He rasps, and then he throws up again.

“Paul’s not here, and you’re going to die.”

It’s easier than it should be for her to get him up. He doubles over to throw up again, and she lets him. He’s too far gone.

The morning is too bright. It’s too painful. It’s too much. She doesn’t do mornings. That’s why she became a PhD, not a medical doctor.

She gets him into her car as a blond pulls up. “Mike?” The woman’s voice cracks.

“I’m taking him to the hospital.” She manages to keep her tone level, even though she thinks she’s going to shake apart. “He’s throwing up, can’t keep down water.”

The blond’s eyes are pleading. “Let me drive.”

“No, Paige.” Mike lifts his head long enough to acknowledge the blond. “No, both of you leave. I’ll go.”

The women exchange looks. “Like hell you will.”

Paige drives. And, she talks. She talks about good men, about kind men, about monsters. There’s a team going to find a girl called Lena, in Phoenix.

“Better they believe... that she’s happy,” Mike murmurs through his paper dry lips. “She’s in a better place.”

“What?” Paige demands, looking like the world has dropped out from her.

“Happy.” Mike repeats. And then, he doesn’t speak again.


End file.
